Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Diva - Movie Review

Its a 1971 French movie. There's a postal delivery boy who has an ear for music. He is a great fan of an opera singer. (The first scene is a full 5 minutes of her opera performance.) In that first scene he is seen delivering some flowers to her at a concert and on the way back, stealing her dress. He also records her concert which is very valuable - she does not allow her performances to be recorded.

In a parallel track, a girl alights a train and is running away from two men who are intent on killing her. As with all good intents, they succeed. But not before she slips a cassette into the postal delivery boy's scooter. Obviously it contains secret information about an 'evil man'.

On another parallel track, a couple of goggled Oriental-looking men in black suits are shown. They are after something and are up to no good.

On another track, our postman meets a Oriental looking girl (Vietnam?) who steals stuff from a music shop ingeniously. They share a love for music. She has a boyfriend who seems to know something about everything. He gives her the recording of the diva's performance.

Okay, let's put it all together. The post boy has a rare recording of the diva's best performance. This performance he asks his Vietnamese girl to listen. Word somehow gets around that this rare cassette is in existence. The two Korean black suits are from a record label who want the diva to sign her rights to make copies else they will publish the unauthorised recording. To get the unauthorised recording they chase the boy.

Dead girl is a prostitute who is in the ring of a drug and prostitution racket. Her cassette is also with the postal boy where she identifies the police chief as the kingpin. Now there are two interesting cassettes, one postboy, one pissed off diva, one guy who can leverage the whole thing (Vietnam girl's boyfriend). He finally gets both the villains to bump one another off. Diva is happy. Post boy is happy. We are happy.

For so many parallel tracks, its slick and well shown. You never get bored nor disconnected. All characters retain some originality, some driving motive which is so important to me. Fellows know what they are doing. Apparently its some landmark film in French cinema. I liked it.

2 comments:

Rajendra said...

interesting storyline.

Harimohan said...

Yes Raja. Well made too. All very organic and neatly fit in including the whacko Vietnamese girl and the seemingly distant coincidences. It all looks believable.